Not sure how it is in KSA, but Kuwait is a little more progressive. Not much, but a little. They at least give more leeway to non-Muslims, and will kind of look the other way sometimes for Americans, because…well, they generally love Americans. But it’s still unpleasant. First, you get yelled at. A lot. In public. They pretty much shut down the customs lines and pull you out front and yell to everyone that you were a very, very bad boy and should be ashamed of yourself. Public shame is a strong deterrent there. After that, you get hauled into a room and get yelled at by several other angry men. You are reminded of the catastrophic effects on society of alcohol and pork products, and you could be single-handedly responsible for the downfall of civilization. You get get yelled at by someone else. You then have to sign a piece of paper that says you now recognize the error of your ways, you are terribly sorry, and you promise to never do something like that again. And they yell at you while you walk on out of the aiport. They like to yell.
And then your friend goes and gets black market bacon?
That’s cray cray.
He really likes bacon.
He smuggled it again on occassion, but had his butcher label it as “beef”.
Macallan labeled as ‘Lipton.’
Try 3 shotgun shells, after dove hunting, that got stuck between and under the truck seats. Then try and drive across the border for dinner
In KSA there’s two kinds of alcohol: “clear” and “brown”. Brown is clear with a chunk of slightly charred wood tossed into the glass jar when it is “aged”.
There was once an unofficial Aramco publication titled “The Blue Flame”, a how-to book on safe distilling.
A former colleague of mine from London went out to Saudi and was living on the Armco compound. He said he’d never been more drunk, more often, than when he was there.
He explained that, because there’s nothing to do, every night there is a house party somewhere. And, because you can’t buy booze, everyone makes their own and control of the ABV is variable.
Also, houses on the compound were built with a room on the side that had breakaway walls for when the still blew up.
“halal bacon”
House parties are a big deal in all the compounds. It’s a lot like a college town. I had a friend in the British Aerospace compound, one of the smaller ones, which had a proper pub on the grounds. All the booze was made and donated by the residents and put in empty liquor bottles to look right.
There’s a brisk local industry in Al Khobar of mobile shawarma rotisseries to serve house parties.
This is not unique to compounds in KSA. And if there are Russians involved it’s also basically “Whore Island”.
When I was doing some work in KSA, my Egyptian-national host bellowed, in the workplace for all to hear, that he preferred working in Iran vs. KSA. He followed loudly by saying, “there they drink in public and pray in private, here they pray in public and drink in private”. This was during Ramadan too, which was especially funny.
USMNT AND NIKE WYD?
It’s ok to be gay at the World Cup, just don’t be gay at the World Cup.
FYI, England captain Harry Kane has stated that he will wear the rainbow captain’s armband despite it being banned at the tournament. That’s going to be interesting…
Are we really going to play this lot…in Qatar?
Speaking of the World Cup, I’m running a pick’em contest if anyone is interested. We did one for the last Euros. Here were the rules/results
Its $10 to enter. If you are interested let me know what email address to send you an invite
Way too little blood
FIFA is the worst. Qatar was a mistake from the moment it was announced as host. The deaths and human rights violations are something that everyone who plans to watch the games needs to know. The urge for me to watch the tournament is strong but I almost feel like I should avoid it.
I think this is the sentiment of most fans.